Honor Harrington knows how to fight. She's proved that repeatedly in ship-to-ship battles in which she was badly outnumbered. More than once she's salvaged situations in which the destruction of her force seemed the only possible outcome, and made them into triumphs. But now she is about to face a new form of fight, in which all the rules she knows will do her no good.

Her old enemy, Lord Pavel Young, has finally disgraced himself and ruined his Navy career for good. But his father, the Earl of North Hollow, pulls every political trick in his power to save his worthless heir. Although even that old manipulator's machinations cannot save Young's career, he does rescue his whelp from the firing squad, the fate of the proven deserter. But the strain costs the old man his life, and in a matter of minutes Lord Pavel goes from being cashiered from the Navy to inheriting an earldom.

With a different brand of power in his hands, the new Earl North Hollow burns with a desire for revenge upon the woman he blames for his ruin. He will stop at nothing to destroy Honor Harrington, but first he wishes to ruin everything she loves, to make her despair.

But despair is one thing Honor Harrington doesn't know how to do. Far from it, her old enemy's attacks only solidify her determination to destroy him, even if it means destroying her own career in the process. The new Earl North Hollow has picked the wrong woman to anger.